Egon Müller, the most famous German winemaker turned down reputable British wine traders to make this man his representative in the United Kingdom. ÁKOS FORCZEK could have become a diplomat or even a secret-service agent. His knowledge of languages absolutely predestined him to pursue such careers. However, his radiating personality, which attracts everyone’s attention in a split second, may not have been to his advantage on secret missions. Gifted with an instinctive sense and a healthy portion of desire for adventure, he threw himself into the alcohol business of the world to sail the world’s sea of wine and finally include István Szepsy’s wines among his favourite products. But how does he work today, and where did he start from to become maybe the only substantial Hungarian wine trader living abroad?
In London, halfway between Piccadilly and Oxford Street, Conduit Street joins Regent Street, where Ákos Forczek, who is now forty-six, set up shop a few years ago. In the narrow stairway a small flight of stairs leads up to his office. The office apartment looks quite ordinary; there is no fuss about it at all. But why should there be? There are boxes of wine piled on top of one another everywhere: wine on tables, wine on stands, wine in refrigerators. Wines from the best small cellars of Europe and the new world are waiting here for Ákos Forczek to pour them into the glasses of potent and potential clients. Although a small team of colleagues has gathered around him since he first settled down in London, he does the major part of the sales activity himself. He sets out on a mission carrying the essential accessories of an independent London wine trader: a rolling suitcase and a rucksack. The clothes he wears are impeccable; a well-tailored suit stretches over the enormous chest he got from rowing, and below the jacket he wears a shirt with cufflinks. On his feet he wears shoes made by a shoemaker in Kiskunhalas. He himself comes from this town located on the southern part of the Great Plain of Hungary. He may as well buy his footwear at the elegant shoemakers’ on the corner of Regent Street bearing the royal coat of arms. But while being cosmopolitan, he insists on his Hungarian craftsman and, of course, on Hungary too.
Ákos Forczek
"... I asked the director to introduce me to him, saying that without me Hennessy would only remain a one-armed giant."
(Photo by Marianna Sárközy)
He first started to become a cosmopolitan as a child, when in the seventies his father, an agricultural expert, received an assignment in Algeria. The family spent four years in Northern Africa. The young schoolboy learnt perfect French, the language of the former colonial power, and he could soon communicate with the locals too. Integrating in the local school was a real manly challenge for him – at the beginning he was rather an unusual sight with his blue eyes and blonde hair among all the dark-skinned children – and he soon earned respect when he won a spitting contest. His father was honestly astonished when the local linguist professor hired for his son taught him to read Arabic in only one month. He still speaks fluent Arabic. After they returned home from Algeria, at the age of fourteen he declared that he was not going to build a career in Hungary. In the meantime, to increase his chances abroad, he learnt Russian and obviously English after mastering Hungarian, French and Arabic. He obtained his first diploma at the International Relations Department of the University of Economics in Budapest.
After all this is it surprising at all that the previous regime set its eyes on this young man?
The conversation from which this article was written was held on a date selected with great difficulty in his busy calendar and at an impossible venue, a stone’s throw away from Budapest Airport, where he arrived in the company of two British chefs before continuing their journey to Pécs, where he had organised an introduction into the ways of making Hungarian salami for the young and highly cultured fine-dining specialists. So we sat down in the hall of a hotel in Vecsés to draw up a quick sketch of his career.
Being a wine trader is not an easy way to make a living in London. Don’t you think you would have been better off becoming a diplomat – I ask the most obvious question – once you are fluent in five languages?
“Before I started university, during my compulsory military service, the secret-service approached me, but thanks to the change of the political regime I got away without having to ‘serve’ my home country in this way. As I was not in the least attracted by any type of political career or even by the thought of it, as opposed to many other of my contemporaries I decided not to get involved in foreign affairs; although I could have done, as it happened then that our head of department at the university, Géza Jeszenszky was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, and there were no obstacles at all to me becoming a diplomat in the end. But as I had planned, straight after graduation I was able to leave Hungary. I got a scholarship in France on a top postgraduate course. Angouléme is situated forty kilometres from Cognac, and it is one of those wonderful places where everything remains grey even when the sun comes out. I was right in the middle of my scholarship when one day a nice large chauffeur-driven car a rolled up on the courtyard of the school, and an elegantly dressed gentleman got out. I couldn’t help asking the school director who had just arrived. I was informed that the gentleman was Hennessy’s HR manager. So I asked the director to introduce me to him, saying that without me Hennessy would only remain a one-armed giant. I was twenty-four, and at that time I had no idea about work at all. I was introduced. Over the next four months I went to interviews. The final decision was made by four members of the board of directors, after I had been running to and fro between their offices. They took me on. And I was not simply given the position of junior regional manager at Hennessy’s Eastern European branch, but I had a secretary, a chauffeur, access to a private airplane, a travelling budget of five hundred thousand francs and two million francs for marketing. Six months later my boss resigned and I was promoted manager with full representing rights in Eastern Europe. Alcohol, money, practically unlimited. What more could a man in his twenties long for?” Ákos asks laughing, not expecting an answer.
“I travelled to many different countries filling people up with top quality alcohol. It was a good but very hard four years of my life. One day in 1993 I walked into the Casino in Yekaterinburg to check how stocks were moving when I heard someone shouting: Don’t move! The next moment the local mafia made everyone stand against the wall, including myself. They grabbed an old man, dragged him out of the room and shot him in the head at the bottom of the stairs. Well, for five hours after that we did not dare to leave the casino. When finally we decided to go back to where we were staying, we had to step over the body frozen in the snow.”
Who would have thought that the legal alcohol trade could be just as dangerous as it was back in the Prohibition days in America at the beginning of the 20th century? But the wine trader still has a few more manly stories.
“It was a year later that the first western company, which was me myself, appeared in Novosibirsk. I got off the plane and I could hardly take a breath. The temperature there was thirty-nine degrees below zero. We thought it better to store the champagne at six degrees in the refrigerator to stop it from freezing! Well, in Novosibirsk we started with champagne at ten in the morning, but because of the cold we had to change over to cognac after eleven. With regard to my special ‘status’ the local television station interviewed me. It turned out only years later that this recording with my face on it was broadcast about a million times on the local television channel. I was already living in London when in 2002 a man from Siberia came up to me and happily greeted me as if I had been an old friend. He knew me from the television. You can imagine, he knew me ‘quite well’! In the meantime I obtained a university degree in law at home, but instead of doing a PhD course I decided to continue my studies doing the first MBA course in Europe at INSEAD.”
But how does a refined knowledge of wine fit in with all these extraordinary experiences? For it is essential for distributing Szepsy wines, similarly to the wines of other prestigious French and German cellars.
“I dare say that Hennessy’s cellar contains the largest collection of alcoholic drinks in the world. As opposed to many others I showed respect and good manners when dealing with the kitchen staff, so they expressed their gratitude by presenting me with the treasures kept in the depths of the cellar. My taste improved quite quickly after being pampered with Mouton Rothschild, Cheval Blanc wines. The first cellar tour in my life also led to Cheval Blanc.”
His delightfully overwhelming manners may make an outside observer think that he is a bon vivant, but Ákos’s private life is definitely organised according to the conservative model.
“My mother regularly visits us from Szentendre, Hungary to look after our daughter Anastasia, and naturally she also spends holidays with us. I met my wife in Moscow at Sheremetyevo Airport at the check-in. I helped her out with my knowledge of Russian. During the journey it turned out that as opposed to many other people she likes and even understands good cognac. In 1997 I married Michelle, who was born in the US, but has Eastern European ancestors. In those days McKinsey was trying to convince me to go and have an interview with them, but I was already busy setting up my own company. My achievement at the interview was a hundred percent, which made their jaws drop. They wanted me very much to work for them. In the end they made me an offer that if I failed with my own company I could still choose to work with them in two years’ time.”
However, the small company did get launched. It has been thriving for fifteen years now, and a few months ago it also came to Hungary.
“Because of my wife’s job we moved from Paris to the UK, and very enthusiastically and armed with all my stable experience obtained at Hennessy’s I decided to conquer London with a Chrystal-level one hundred and fifty pound Henri-Giraud Champagne and a one thousand pound cognac. Obviously everyone thought I was nuts. In the midst of this frustrating atmosphere I launched Top Selection. It soon turned out that I had faster cash flow, if I sell wine. Now we have a team of nine people and we work with seventy-four suppliers. There are still many people in London who hate me, because Egon Müller left wine traders with hundreds of years of history to choose me, the unknown Hungarian.”
And then the moment came when Ákos Forczek found István Szepsy, whose wines have now been added to Top Selection’s range.
“Selling Hungarian wine has always been maturing within me too. My friend, Péter Jankovics helped me find a wine maker whose products were worth selling from home. When we got to know István, his annual yield was only a thousand and eight hundred bottles. This was the 1997 Aszú. We soon made friends, and we have always trusted each other. I might say that István and I grew up together and fought our way through the recession together too. In those days you could already buy Szepsy in London at a couple of places. But from those few I soon bought up all bottles they had. We started the year 2001 with the 1998 vintage wine. And the 1999 Aszú suddenly went up from thirty-three pounds to fifty-five, and they gave two hundred pounds for its Esszencia.
We only realised the real potential in his wines when in the company of István I presented his wine at Caviar House on Piccadilly. I was pouring out the wine, when suddenly a man with severe diabetes, as it turned out later, joined us from the neighbouring table. In the end this gentleman did not simply buy a few bottles of wine, but he also auctioned some of the wines in New York. It was then that I recognised what is really hidden within Szepsy wines.”
At this point I seemed to understand or rather sense the secret behind Ákos Forczek’s success, but I still decided to ask him about it.
“I always tell the truth. There is no marketing blah-blah or mystification. I pour the wine and the consumer makes a decision; they are always able to choose at least two wines that they like out of the thirty. I only allow wines in our selection that I can place in front of my customers under any circumstances and which I can undertake even with my eyes closed. I know a lot about my winemakers including which year it was that their grapes rotted in Nuit-Saint-George, but I also know the names of their dogs and their wives, the date of the anniversary of their grandfather’s death, and many other things.”
Ákos Forczek, István Szepsy junior, Péter Jankovics at Top Selection’s introductory wine tasting event in Hungary at the end of 2013
(Photo by Marianna Sárközy)
Finally, why do you want to sell foreign wine in Hungary?
“Hungarian wine culture is really great, with unbeatable ancient varieties, but I have set up Top Selection in Hungary too, because I want to introduce wines that cannot be produced here like they can in their favourite region; for example Syraz or Pinot Noir. And I would also like to exploit the knowledge I accumulated in London. I must also say that without my one hundred percent reliable friend, Péter Jankovics I would have never had the courage to start wine trading in Hungary. I have known him for twenty-seven years, and we share the same enthusiasm and love for wine. Together we travelled around the wine regions of the world and we were also together when we first met István Szepsy. And if this is still not enough, we talk on the phone four times every day. Our joint achievements also include when we got truly plastered near Egon’s and István’s barrels.”
Hedvig Tallián
